Mary Akers' Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Books & Booze is a mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC that will post every Friday in October. The participating authors were challenged to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Mary Akers shares a drink that she's paired with her upcoming October release Bones of an Inland Sea:

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My book is BONES OF AN INLAND SEA, a short story collection, and all of the stories take place on or around the ocean. My drink is called The Lifeboat. As in, "May I offer you a Lifeboat?" or "Would you care for a Lifeboat?"

THE LIFEBOAT

Muddle six mint leaves with 1 Tablespoon coconut water (unsweetened) 

 

Combine mint in a martini shaker with: 

 

1 part Citron vodka

1 part Blue Curaçao

1 part coconut water

1 T coconut cream (sweetened)

juice from 1/2 a lime 

 

Add ice, cover, and shake vigorously, then pour into a martini glass. Add a splash of club soda or seltzer and garnish with a thinly sliced star fruit (or lime) on the rim. I also like to throw a couple of blue Pop Rocks on top. They don't change the taste, but it makes the drink crackle like the ocean around the island of Dominica crackles from all the thermal vents in the area.

 

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Mary Akers is an ocean advocate and author of the short story collections BONES OF AN INLAND SEA and WOMEN UP ON BLOCKS; she also co-authored the non-fiction title ONE LIFE TO GIVE. Akers frequently writes fiction that focuses on the intersections between art and science, including such topics as diverse and timely as the environmental movement and the struggle for human and animal rights. She co-founded the Institute for Tropical Marine Ecology, a study abroad marine ecology program originally located in Roseau, Dominica. Although raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia--which she will always call home--she currently lives in Western New York.